Read Reincarnated as an Energy with a System Chapter 261 - Month In A Flash online for free - AllNovelFull
Ning roamed the city for a few hours and saw the many stores. He even bought a few souvenirs he could give to Anya and her kids once he went back to meet her sometime soon.
He tried some of the local delicacies and was absolutely floored by how it tasted. The restaurants in this city made foods that were beyond perfection. Not only that, it seemed the ingredients they used were quite luxurious as well as if they were made up of some rich spirit plants and animals.
Ning went to the tailor and got himself a new set of robes that he could wear around the city now. He felt his robes and was surprised at how smooth the clothes were as well.
"Damn, I wonder what this fabric is made up of. It doesn't look like the normal fabric we are used to getting in the other schools," he thought.
He went to the foot of the mountain and saw a massive line of huge tower-like buildings that went as high as 10 floors. The lowest floors were the largest, while the upper floors got smaller and smaller.
There were around 20 or more buildings here, but only 5 of them were truly towering. Others didn't even come in half of the 5 towers.
"Oh, these are the profession halls, huh?" Ning said as he saw them.
The Five Professions. Alchemy, Beast Mastery, Artifact Creation, Formation Mastery, and finally Talisman Making. There were the 5 professions that sold the most and were thus remained the best in the city.
The other towers were professions that were taught in the academy but didn't hold as much prestige as the 5 main professions.
He saw hundreds of thousands of people going in and out of the nearly 2 dozen towers. Ning shook his head and instead moved towards what was behind the towers.
There was a path opened up between the Beast Tamer hall, and the Artifact hall that led to the back of the tower. Ning walked through that path and reached a massive gate that had thousands of people grouping up to look at some of the information posted on the wall.
Ning walked to the wall too, pushing aside people left and right. Finally, he saw the information written on a notice.
The notice was an exam notice that mentioned when the tests were going to take place. Ning quickly read it and realized that the exams were all held on different days for different professions.
The one that mattered to him for now, Alchemy, was set exactly 29 days later. The Gate didn't seem like it was going to be opened for now and they could only wait outside so he had nothing to do here now.
"Guess I have time to waste," he thought and walked back from the gate. He went back to the city and found a tavern that he could rent for.
30 days of stay cost him about 5 spirit stones. At first, he nearly thought he was getting robbed when he heard the price, but they matched with how must things cost throughout the city.
'It really is a very expensive city,' he thought and went to his room. He had 29 days of peace and had every intention to make the 5 spirit stones worth their price.
He sat down in a lotus position in the bed and started thinking. There were many books on Alchemy in his mind that we're just staying there.
He had learned a book or two here and there and he could make about 3rd Grade's worth of pills. If he had tried just a little more, he was sure he could have reached the 4th or maybe even the 5th grade.
He took the information that was in his mind and started piecing them together. He had a month of time and didn't want to use the system to immediately learn it all.
Besides, the interface was annoying to use for him. He would rather spend his time like this than use the interface of the system.
There was much knowledge that he learned about in the 30 days that he was stuck. He learned about ingredients, the recipes, and the combination.
He learned how the higher grade pills could be made and how hard it was for him to do it. A month quickly passed by and he opened his eyes in the tavern room.
"Today is the day. I can't mess it up," he thought. He had the tavern room under his name for 1 more day, so he didn't visit the tavern's boss to let him know he was going somewhere.
It was 6 am in morning, and Ning was surprised how awake all the people already were. Not only that, they seemed to be going towards the Academy too.
'So many alchemists in one place,' Ning thought with absolute shock. This was just not possible to see in the other continent anywhere except for special Alchemist gatherings.
He walked past the two great towers and walked to the gate. This time, the gate was fully open. So, he went past the guard and walked up the mountain.
He looked around to see if he could find Ender, but he couldn't see him anywhere. 'I might find him in the exam room,' he thought.
"Where am I supposed to go?" Ning wondered a little and looked towards other people for help.
"Hey, how was your practice?" one of the two men walking up the stairs spoke.
"It was pretty great. I think I can do it this time," the other man said.
"Uhh… my name would be in tatters if I don't pass this time around too," the first man said.
'Are they going to the Alchemy exam as well? It sounds like they've taken the entrance exam before' Ning thought as he listened to their conversation and realized that they were indeed going to take the exam.
In about 10 minutes, Ning reached the top and looked at the massive academy in front of him.
"No, I can look at it later.. I need to go register first," Ning thought and quickly followed the two men to the examination place.
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The Five Professionals Academy was in the shape of a pentagon and was about 5 stories high. Each of the 5 sides of the pentagon building belonged to one of the 5 main professions and other professions that aligned to it.
Ning was currently in his own mind as he followed the two people towards the Alchemy wings of the academy.
'I wonder what it will be like. Will it be similar to the Volunteer exam? Or maybe the beast taming exam from the Mist Origin sect,' he wondered.
The two men soon reached a girl who was registering the people for the entrance exam.
'Am I late? Or am I too early?' Ning wondered as he looked at the utter lack of individuals registering for the exam. 'Or did people get registered beforehand and are now inside the classes already?'
The two people quickly registered and walked into the class behind the girl. Ning walked up and asked to be registered.
"Fill this," the girl handed him a talisman. Ning quickly filled in a talisman with information as close to the truth as it was. He was then stuck on a part.
"Umm… What should I put on this Alchemist grade part If I've never been officially tested?" he asked.
"You don't have a grade yet?" the girl asked in shock. "Then why are you taking this exam? You know that passing this exam is really hard if you don't have quite a high amount of knowledge right? She asked.
"Oh, I know the things. I've just not been officially tested," Ning said with a smile.
The girl squinted her eyes but quickly moved on. "Just say Ungraded in that segment then," she said and Ning did so. After that, he handed the talisman back to the girl.
The girl quickly checked if there were any possible errors. "Looks good. Alright, hand over 100 Spirit Stones," she said.
"What?" Ning asked in surprise. "Why would you need 100 spirit stones?"
"It's a price for the exam. Don't worry, if you pass, the 100 stones will be handed back to you," the girl gave him a weird look.
'Damn it, they should have mentioned it in the notice,' he thought. Thankfully, he was now a Nascent Soul cultivator and had come across quite a few places where Spirit stones were priced almost as cheap as gold coins.
He took out 100 spirit stones from his storage, thinking he would definitely give them back. Once he was properly registered, he took the entrance card he was handed and walked in.
As soon as he walked in, he saw a large number of people that filled the room to nearly a brim.
'That's… not a lot of people,' he thought. Considering the hundreds of thousands that came to the city in the last month, the nearly thousand people he was seeing was very low.
'It's low even when compared to just the amount of people walking up the stairs,' he thought. He walked to an empty seat while trying to find Ender along the way.
Unfortunately, he wasn't here.
"Oh, there must be more than one room then. No wonder there are so few people here," he finally realized. He looked around, a little surprised at how many old people were actually in the room.
"Did they focus on Alchemy so much that they stopped cultivating for a little while?" Ning found it quite funny that people could be so invested in an art form that they would risk losing near eternal youth to do so.
He looked around a little more and was surprised that most of these people were in the Nascent Soul realm. "Hm… is it okay to show my cultivation base without worry? Will I not get treated as a commodity in this academy?" he wondered.
He really did want to stop the concealment skill he had learned during the last century that helped block a portion of his cultivation base.
After a little more thinking, he decided to wait before he did so. He would be lying about his strength even if he really showed his true cultivation base, so he decided to keep concealing for now.
"Still, it's amazing just how many Nascent Soul realm cultivators there are in this academy. Makes me wonder why they can't advance any further," Ning thought. He was still thinking of ways to help Hyesi and Anya, and the thing that he had settled on was to help them leave the planet.
That was the only way he could possibly do it. Since the planet didn't have a lot of Qi, there was no way he could let them stay here. However, he himself couldn't teleport out of the planet without a 10th of the Planet's energy in his body, and that was just absurd.
He would need to think of other ways for sure. He had thought of simply flying out of the planet, but the closest habitable planet was still about half a light-year away according to the system.
Even a light second cost him about 4.5 Billion energy to teleport once he flew out of the planet, so that wasn't possible either. Besides, taking two people, and possibly their family with him was just not possible.
"Sigh, let's not think about that for now. I will help them when I can," Ning thought as he shook his head.
After a minute or two, a very old man with white hair and a mustache walked into the room. He wore a dark red robe with a Golden Star that had a carving of a leaf on his chest. He also had a few bronze stars just below the large golden one and each of them had a different imprint on them.
'He must be one of the starred individuals just like Ender's sister,' Ning thought. A bit of murmur appeared from the people around him as they started whispering about the old man a little.
'Is he famous by any chance?' Ning wondered. He had spent the last month holed up inside his room, so he wouldn't know that.
"Ahem." The old man coughed to catch everyone's attention.
"Good morning, everyone.. I am Jezeere Praxton, a professor in the academy, and I will be your Examiner for today."
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As soon as Jezeere introduced himself, the crowd went into a flurry of hushed noises and whispers. Ning was surprised for a second as to why they were so excited about a single person but soon thought that it must have been because Jezeere was a well-known Alchemist.
'I did spend a month in the tavern room, holed up inside. It's understandable that I wouldn't know who that is. Should I have tried to find out?' Ning thought. But it took away from the mystery aspect of his adventure, so he didn't think that was necessary.
The crowd seemed to be still very excited to Ning which made him wonder.
'Do these people want to take his class when they pass? Is he that good of a teacher? Maybe I should go to their class too when I become a student here,' he thought.
"Silence!" Jezeere ordered and the whole room went quiet. He waited for everyone to get orderly and suddenly threw a stack of paper in the air.
The papers all fell onto the desk of every examinee one by one. One of the papers also fell on top of Ning's desk. Just as he was about to check it, a massive divine sense passed through them with one order in it.
DON'T LOOK
Ning stopped himself from bringing out his own divine sense and just waited there for Jezeere to continue.
"On that paper are 3 questions. As long as you accurately answer only two of them, you will pass," Jezeere said.
'What? Only 3?' Ning was surprised. 'How come an exam has only 3 questions?'
The other examinees seemed to have the same thought as they spoke in hushed voices amongst themselves. While some were surprised, the ones that had taken the exam before weren't surprised at all.
Jezeere looked at them with disapproving looks seeing them all talk so much.
"And…" he continued, "don't forget to write your registration number on the top of the paper. Do not use divine sense to cheat and finally, you only have 10 minutes to answer all 3 of the question."
The examinees
Jezeere took out an hourglass and placed it on the ground. "Your time starts now," he said and immediately flipped the hourglass.
Rustles of paper moving rang out from the entire room. Ning turned his own as well and saw 3 empty talismans stuck behind each of the 3 questions.
He quickly marked the paper with his registration number and looked at the first question.
-If someone comes up to you asking for your help in distinguishing the Darkmoon Grass from Blacksilver Grass without using their odor. What would you do?-
'Oh, Darkmoon Grass and Blacksilver grass huh? Those two are pretty much the same grass from a visual standpoint since they both are dark-silver in color. It's hard to differentiate them without their odor,' he thought.
He went through his mind that spent the last month learning everything about Alchemy that he could. He then thought of the first answer that came to his mind.
'You can dip a Darkmoon grass in a Porcupine fruit's juice and then tear it horizontally. It will tear up straight until the halfway seam and then tear towards the stem from there on.'
'On the other hand, the Blacksilver Grass would instead tear until the halfway seam and then tear towards the tip,' he thought and got ready to answer it.
Just then, however, he stopped. 'Wait for a second, the question asked me to help someone else differentiate it. Meaning, it is very likely they wouldn't have a Porcupine fruit on them,' Ning thought.
He thought of another answer.
'If we burn a Darkmoon grass under the moonlight, the smoke coming off of it would fly in the direction the moonlight is striking towards. On the other hand, Blacksilver grass would just move in the direction of the wind.'
'Wait, no. It needs moonlight. That's not the answer either,' Ning thought.
He thought of another answer. 'If we freeze the blades of the two blades of grass almost instantaneously, the Blacksilver grass would attain a flexible property, while the Darkmoon grass would simply snap in half.'
'Wait, that requires flash freezing on the other person's part. If they don't have any ice skills, especially one that doesn't flash freezes it, then it's useless,' he thought.
He moved on to another answer, and then another. Since his mind was filled with many answers, sorting through the ones that only required the two blades of grass and nothing else was quite hard.
He had nearly spent 5 minutes just thinking about these answers and by now he had about 7 different ones, but none applied to the question.
Then, on the 8th answer, he finally found something.
'If one pours their Qi into the Blacksilver grass until it's full and drops it in a not so windy place, the weight added onto the blade due to the Qi would always make it fall on its underside.'
'While the Darkmoon grass would just act like a normal blade of grass and randomly fall on either side,' he thought. Finally, an answer that applied to everyone.
In a world of cultivation, who didn't have Qi? So, he decided to go with this answer and wrote it on the talisman.
He wrote, 'I would ask the person to fill the blade of grass with their Qi, and …', and explained everything. After he was done with it, however, he felt bad about having all the different answers but not using them.
So, he decided to put them in as well.
'Alternatively,' he wrote, 'if you have a Porcupine fruit…'
'If you have an ice skill that can flash freeze the blades…'
'If you are in an open place with moonlight…'
'If you have two blocks of silver that have stolen the moonlight's essence…'
'If you have a Olfactory Hallucination pill…'
.
.
.
He wrote all the answers he could think of and finally put down the talisman. He then looked at the hourglass and frowned.. There were only 3 minutes left at most.
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Ning worriedly looked at the next question. With barely 3 minutes remaining, he needed to answer the next question as fast as he could.
Thankfully, the next 2 questions were very easy.
The 2nd question asked to list the various pills and their effects that could be created from the ingredients listed in the question.
As soon as Ning saw the ingredients, his mind worked extra fast to think of as many combinations as he could think of. However, due to time constraints, he could only list out about 13 pills and their effects.
He needed to immediately move on to the next question and answer it too.
The third question asked for a list of pills that could regrow a fully detached limb. The examinees were to answer as many pills as they could.
Ning didn't have a lot of time, so he hurriedly wrote as many names as he could on the talisman.
"STOP!" Jezeere shouted as his divine sense started forcing everyone to stop what they were doing. Ning reluctantly put down the talisman after naming around 43 pill names.
If he had the time, he could go above 200 pills, but unfortunately, he didn't.
The paper floated up and went towards Jezeere as they stacked on the desk in front of him. "Come back tomorrow around noon to hear your result," he said and left.
Ning stood up and left the room along with everyone else.
"I hope I did well."
"Thank god we only require 2 questions to pass. Otherwise, I would've failed."
"You too? I had the exact same experience."
Ning could hear the people talking. 'I guess learning everything already made me a great alchemist. Still, I have yet to make pills and such,' he thought.
He walked down the mountain stairs and didn't see anyone other than the ones he was with. 'Did only our group leave?' he wondered.
He went back to his room in the tavern and decided to skip a day.
Late afternoon, in a room inside the Alchemy wing.
Jezeere was looking through the questions, testing them. He was currently looking through the papers to decide who to grade, and who not to.
He made two piles of paper as he separated them accordingly. He was mindlessly doing so when another teacher that was checking the papers of his own on the side stood up to stretch.
"God, the kids are getting smarter and smarter these days," the teacher said and walked up to Jezeere. He looked at the question sheet and laughed as he read it. "Only 2 out of 3 required… you still use this trick huh?" he asked
"Of course," Jezeere said. "Why wouldn't I use something that works so well?"
The man then read the first question and got a little confused. "How are they supposed to answer a question that doesn't have an answer?" he asked.
"They don't. They should be writing either 'I don't know or 'I haven't learned this yet. Accepting that you do not know about something and can still learn is the first step for these people," Jezeere said as he put aside the sheets that had the 1st question left blank or answered with 'You can't.'
"Oh, and what about someone who just makes stuff up? What do you do with them?" the teacher asked as he handed Jezeere an answer sheet.
"Huh?" Jezeere grabbed the talisman and read it. "What the? The hell is wrong with this person?" he thought as he read through the different answers for the first question that was written there.
"Not only that, check the other two answers too," the teacher said.
Jezeere quickly checked the other two talismans and started reading the answers. Suddenly, his eyes went wide.
"Th-This!"
Ning opened his eyes around 11 am in morning. That was the timer he had set through the interface for himself to wake up at.
He quickly left the tavern and went up the mountain. Although the results would be published at 12 pm, it wasn't a bad idea to get there a little earlier than normal.
Ning reached the top of the stairs and was stopped by a massive crowd of people who were there to check their own results. 'So many,' he thought.
"Oh, brother Ning," Ender spoke from the side when he saw Ning.
"Hey, it's been a while," Ning said. He then looked around and asked, "Your sister is not here right?"
"Haha, no. Don't worry about her. Sorry about last time though, I've never seen her be so protective," Ender said.
"Well, she is your elder sister, so I guess it makes sense," he said.
"By the way, I didn't see you yesterday. Did you miss the entrance exam?" Ender asked.
"Oh, I was in a different room from yours," Ning said.
"Different room?" Ender made a confused look. "I don't thin—"
"Hey look, it's here," someone shouted.
Suddenly, a massive image flew up in the sky as a list of names with some numbers next to them appeared out of the blue.
People saw the list and read the first thing written on it.
PASSED
"Ah, I hope my name is there," Ender prayed as he looked through the list. Ning did the same.
It didn't take long for Ning to realize something weird about the numbers on the right that represented the registration number.
"5 digits? Mine is only 3 though," he thought. "Maybe mine has 2 zeros in the front." He looked through the list, but no matter how many times he checked, he couldn't find his name at all.
"I passed!" Ender cried out loud.
"Congratulations," Ning said. "Unfortunately, my name isn't there."
"Huh?" Ender stopped celebrating. "Are you sure, Brother Ning? What's your number, I can help you look for it."
"It's a 3 dig—"
"May I have your attention please." Zeheere flew up above the masses and addressed them. "I will be releasing the results of the exam now."
"Ruger Pillet, Bagoo Erety, and Ning Ruogong. Congratulations on passing the exam," Zeheere said.
Ning's heart finally got calmed down after learning that. 'But why announce just our 3 names? did we do exceptionally well?' he wondered.
Zeheere continued.
"Welcome to the Five Professions Academy to you 3. You are now officially a Teacher."
"…. Huh?"
Ning was completely blindsided by the results just now. "Teacher? Huh?" his face couldn't help must make a confused expression.
"Please come up, you three," Jezeere asked.
Two other people that Ning remembered from the exam room walked up front with big smiles on their faces. Ning, however, didn't move at all.
"Brother— I mean, Teacher Ning, you should go up soon," Ender said, changing the way he addressed Ning immediately.
Ning didn't know what to do. He slowly walked forward and spoke to Jezeere. "Um, senior Jezeere. Are you sure there is no mistake? I should be a student, not a teacher," he said.
"Hmm… what's your name?" he asked.
"Ning Ruogong," Ning quickly replied.
Jezeere's eyes flashed in a curious manner and asked, "May I see your registration card?"
"Uh, sure," Ning quickly took out the card and handed it to him. Jezeere checked the card and said, "it is the Teacher's entrance exam that you registered for. Why do you say you should be a student?"
"Uhh…" Ning couldn't answer.
'Teacher's exam? Did I sign up for that? I thought it was the student's exam. No wonder the people were so little and everyone was old,' Ning thought.
"Come on up, Teacher Ning," Jezeere said with a smile.
Ning sighed and reluctantly went up. He had decided to become a student for the hell of it, and now that he was a teacher, he would do that too. There was no reason for him to dwell on what happened any longer, and not take up the mantle of being a teacher.
"Everyone, give a round of applause for your potential new teachers," Jezeere said to the crowd and they all started clapping. Ning felt it a little surreal but accepted it.
"Come," Jezeere said and walked away. The 3 of them quickly followed behind him towards the Alchemy wing.
Soon, they were all inside a library-like room with massive amounts of books. "This is the staff room. This is where you will be spending most of your free time from now on," Jezeere explained.
Ning looked at the desks all around him with books on them and a few people off to the corner reading them. They gave a quick glance towards the 3 newcomers and quickly went back to reading their book.
"Do you guys know how the academy classes function?" Jezeere asked.
The two that came together with Ning nodded, but Ning himself shook his head. "I'm new to the academy and am pretty much a newbie here," he said.
"I see, let me explain. You will all get your own classes to teach in the Alchemy wing, but you will have no students. You will have to get students on your own as well."
"The academy bases your earnings on the number of students you have at the end of the month. Depending on the average attendance, you can earn almost nothing, or earn a lot," Jezeere said.
'Earnings depend on the student?' Ning was a little confused why this sort of system was even in place. 'Besides, I don't even need that many spirit stones,' he thought.
Jezeere was looking directly at him and seemed to understand what someone new would think about the current situation.
"There are more benefits than just the earnings," Jezeeer said. If you manage to get 50 students on average across 30 days. You will get a bronze star badge."
"Using bronze star badge, you will have access to everything, including the Alchemy furnaces at the bottom of the Alchemy Wind."
"If you manage to have 200 students by the end of the month on average, you will get a Silver Star badge. With that badge, you have access to the whole academy. Meaning, you can go through any wing of the academy and get what you want in the other staff rooms as well," Jezeere said.
"Also, a Silver star badge gives you the authority to fly through the city as well."
Ning thought for a second. 'There are hundreds of thousands of disciples in this academy, so it shouldn't be that hard to get new disciples, right?'
"Finally, if you somehow manage to have over 500 students on average by the end of the month, you will get the Golden star badges, which not only gets you access to the previous two things but also gives you the authority to use divine sense in the city."
Ning heard all of that and felt it was acceptable. But just then, he thought of something else. "Wait, how do we get new students at the start of the whole thing? Do we wait for the students to come to our room at random?" he asked.
He remembered the days when he was a volunteer in the Pure Cleansing sect and had to leave it all to fate. Even when he had tried to do something, they had the management sent to him.
He didn't want something like that to happen to him as well.
"Oh, my bad. Sorry," Jezeere apologized. "I keep forgetting that I am explaining it all because you are new. It's really unusual to see someone join our sect and not know about it."
Ning just gave an awkward smile in response.
"So, there are 5 lecture halls in the entire Alchemy wing. Every 2 weeks, you will be assigned to one of the 5 halls to give your lecture. Students will naturally come to the lecture, at least most of them, to either find new knowledge or find new teachers."
"You can captivate the hearts of these students during your 2 lectures a month and lure them into your classes," Jezeere said.
The other two nodded, remembering the times they had sat through the lectures. They were a student of this academy previously and thus knew everything properly.
"Alright, that is all from me about introducing the academy," Jezeere said. "You two, go and find Mr. Aikon to get your teaching and residential information."
"As for Teacher Ning, I have some questions for you. Would you please come with me?"
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Ning followed behind Jezeere until they both got to a place that was much quieter without that any teachers or students.
Ning looked around at the emptiness and asked, "Why are there so few people right now. I assumed there would be thousands of students here."
"Ah, it's an entrance season, so the students have a week-long holiday until we get the new students acclimated to the academy," Jezeere said.
He then brought out 3 talismans and handed them over to Ning. "How did you know these things?" he asked.
"Aren't these the talismans with my answers?" he asked and looked through them. "What did you mean by how I knew these things? I learned them."
"Is that so?" Jezeere said while making a scrutinizing face. "Then how come I, a 9th-grade Alchemist not know half of what you've written? In fact, I didn't even know there were answers to the first question. It was supposed to be something that the examinees answered with 'I don't know," he said.
"Huh? You don't know? But these are some pretty simple knowledge t—"
Ning stopped as he finally realized something. 'So the Intermediate alchemy information I got from the system is better than a 9th-grade alchemists' knowledge?' he thought.
"Simple knowledge? Of course, it's not a piece of simple knowledge. If not for your other 2 answers, I was ready to say your answer was that of a rambling buffoon. However, once I saw how good your other answers were, better than the best I had imagined if I may add, I finally decided to test your first answer just a little bit."
"And I must say, every single one of the techniques worked. I didn't know that such a thing even existed. Haha, I was very pleasantly surprised and gave you the pass just then and there," he said.
"Please tell me where you learned these techniques from?" Jezeere asked.
"Oh, I found it in a cave," Ning answered without hesitation. "I was once going through a jungle a few dozen years ago, and came across an underground cave on accident in the middle of it."
"When I searched through the place, I found a few books regarding almost everything out there, but all of them were destroyed by the passage of time."
"The alchemy books barely remained and I managed to read them for a while before they too got so bad that they were destroyed as well."
"Until today, I thought those knowledge were very simple, but now that I listen to you, I must have struck fortune at that time," Ning sounded very surprised and honest as he lied through his teeth.
Jezeere felt like he was being lied to, but couldn't think of any other explanation for Ning to have learned so much at such a young age.
"Mind I ask what forest it was in?" Jezeere asked.
Ning's face got sad as he said, "it was the Shedding Forest of the East. My father and I used to go there to look for different insects and plants all the time."
"After my father passed away due to Qi deviation over a century ago, I went there one last time to cherish our memories. That was when I found those things." His eyes were nearly filled with tears.
"Ah, my apologies," Jezeere quickly apologized. He no longer doubted Ning's answer after seeing his emotions.
"It's fine. Let us change topics," he said. He then saw Jezeere's other two bronze badges in addition to his golden star badge and asked, "What are those for? Those have different carvings from the golden ones."
"Oh, this? The one with the mortar and pestle is my Physician's badge, and the one with the apple is my Beast Feeder's badge. I have some understanding in both of those subjects and can give a good enough lecture on those two subjects to garner that amount of students," Jezeere said.
"Oh, does that mean you didn't have many students during those two classes?" Ning asked.
"No! Quite the opposite actually," Jezeere said with a smile. "Since the number of teachers that actually teach these things are low, students flock to my classes when I teach these two subjects once in a while. I even had over 2000 students in one of those classes," Jezeere said.
"Unfortunately," he continued, "Since the academy bases the badges off of average student over the month, I ended up not meeting the mark of the 200 students for the Silver Badge."
"I see," Ning said. "Does that mean that I can teach other subjects too?"
"Um… you need at least a Silver star badge in your main teaching materials before you can move to other lessons," Jezeere said.
"So, you need a Silver badge in Alchemy, which is the exam you took, before you can move on to whatever else you like."
Ning deliberated on that information for a few seconds. "I see, that's not too bad either."
"Let's go back. You must be getting bored here."
Jezeere took him back to the staff room to get his storage bag full of the different things he would need in this academy. and showed more of the area around the academy to Ning.
Ning was shocked at how truly big the academy was. The exam hall he had been to was already big, but that seemed to just be a spare room that belonged to no one.
The actual classes were massive enough to be large than most lecture halls he had seen himself. The actual lecture halls were also very, very large.
'This place can hold at least 10,000 people and there are 5 of these?' Ning's shock didn't lower even as he went through the different places in the academy.
"And the other 4 wings have the same thing too?" he asked.
"Of course," Jezeere replied. "We don't discriminate between any of the 5 professions, so the academy is built to perfectly encapsulate that."
"Anyway, have fun around here. The classes will begin in 3 days, and after that, this place will be your home for the foreseeable future.. Good Luck."
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Ning walked out of his room sometime in the morning. Although they didn't have windows to tell the time, there were clock artifacts that were given to each teacher.
'First day, huh?' he thought to himself nervously. Although he had been a teacher before, it was to teach illiterate villagers how to read, write and farm.
He didn't know how that experience translated to teaching actual students that had knowledge and questions. Especially now that the system's AI was gone, he was worried he wouldn't find answers as quickly to difficult questions the students might end up asking.
'Whatever, I will do something about it when I get there,' he thought and walked along the corridor. He was currently inside the mountain itself. The people from the Five Professions Academy had carved the inside of the mountain to make a large residential space for teachers as well as places with other facilities in the academy.
The massive spirit vine underneath the surface of the mountain, as well as the different formations and artifacts inside the mountain, made it completely habitable.
Ning came out of one of the 5 different massive doorways to the underground with a leaf carving on top of it. He walked over to the staff room and greeted those that he met.
"Ah, Teacher Ning, you're here too," Ryuger Pillet, one of the 2 people that passed along with him, said.
"You are quite early too, Teacher Ryuger," Ning said. The last 3 days that he was free, he had spent it socializing with the different teachers.
Ryuger walked up to the board and placed his palm on it. Suddenly, a few words appeared on it that mentioned his name, his room number, his subject, and his topic for the day.
Ryuger was going to teach normal alchemy from what Ning could read.
Ning walked up and placed his hands as well. As soon as he placed his hands, small information appeared in his mind that asked for his subject and topic.
Ning wrote 'Alchemy' for the subject. And as for the topic, he wrote 'Anything the students would want to read' he wrote. He believed that letting the students have the freedom of choice would make them want to come into his room.
"Alright, I'm going to my class, Teacher Ning. Since today is the first day, I don't think I will get any. You shouldn't be dejected if you don't either," Ryuger said.
"Haha, don't worry Teacher Ryuger. I have no expectations of getting any new students until my lecture in 5 days," Ning said. With that, the two of them separated and went to their own classes.
Students would start coming in less than 15 minutes, and once they saw the schedule for the day, they would choose themselves what they wanted to learn.
Alex waited and finally, the classes started. He had no hope of any students coming to him, so he decided to simply give up for the day and just try to cultivate.
He closed his eyes and the Qi started coming towards him. They soon formed a vortex as they entered him.
"Hello?" a timid voice sounded from quite close to him.
Ning was fully focused on cultivation, so he didn't see the young girl peek through the door.
"Come in," Ning said and quickly stopped cultivation. He had a look of surprise for a second but quickly got rid of it from his face.
'Was I wrong in thinking that there wouldn't be students on the first day? Maybe there are students that come to the new teachers to boost their confidence. Although, this one doesn't seem like it,' Ning thought.
The young girl had a petite body with slightly reddish hair. She came to the front of the room and was seated on the desk at the massive table. She wore a red robe, just like him right now, belonging to the Alchemy Wing.
Ning looked at the young girl who looked really nervous as she shot her eyes towards him from time to time while also looking at the door from time to time.
'Is she waiting for someone?' Ning wondered.
"Umm…" she finally gathered enough courage to speak. "You should come down from up there," she told to Ning who was sitting up on the podium.
"I should get down?" Ning asked in confusion.
"Yes, quick. Teacher Boel might come at any second now," the girl said.
"Umm… Why would Teacher Boel be coming here?" Ning asked with confusions compounding on him.
"… because this is his class?" the girl answered as if it was obvious.
Ning didn't know whether to laugh or feel bad.
"Um, what's your name?" Ning asked.
"… it's Reya," the girl said.
"Ok, here's the thing, Reya. This is not teacher Boel's class. This is my class; I am a new teacher in the academy; you can call me Teacher Ning," Ning said as he showed her a teacher badge that he had in his storage.
The girl's face changed emotions from confusion to worry to anger to dejection.
"Oh no, I messed up," the girl said to herself with both of her hands on her head.
"Did you come to the wrong room by mistake? You can still go back, no?" Ning asked.
"Not now. The classes have already begun and Teacher Boel is strict. He doesn't let in anyone that is late," the girl was on the verge of crying. "Urgh, those girls pranked me on such an important day," she said dejectedly.
"Um, did you not come here by mistake?" Ning asked.
"No. I was running late today, so I asked them about the schedule today. They said this was the room belonging to Teacher Boel from today on," she said.
"Urghh! There were so many questions I wanted to ask him today. Now I don't know if he will host a question and answer class anytime soon," the girl said with a sad face.
Ning listened to her with a bit of amusement and said. "While I may not be Teacher Boel, I am a teacher of this academy too.. And luckily for you, at least your friends were kind enough on your prank to send you to me who is doing a Question-Answer class today."
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"Oh.. Umm… if you are taking questions too then I- I have a few that I want to ask," Reya said timidly.
"Sure, go ahead and ask. You seem to be the only one to come to my class anyway," Ning said with a smile.
"Okay," she said and brought out a few questions she had written down.
"Ah, yes this…" Reya said and quickly brought out a small tied up cloth. She quickly opened it up and showed a bunch of powder in it.
"I was trying to make the Segmented Minds Pill, but it came out all powdered, instead of forming a pill. Can you help me understand why?" she asked.
"Oh, come here and let me see the powder," Ning said.
Reya walked up to Ning and showed the powder to him. Ning looked at it for a few minutes and said, "I see… where did you get the recipe?" he asked.
"I- uh- bought it at the Alchemy guild in the city a few weeks ago," she said.
"I see," Ning said. "Does the recipe mention what temperature your fire has to be towards the end after you've put in all the ingredients?"
"Um, it does. It says the temperature has to go very low very quickly," Reya said.
"What about your cauldron? Does it's temperature go very low very quickly once you've done lowering the temperature too?" Ning asked.
Reya thought for a second. "Ah! I see. I just need to make sure th cauldron's temperature follows accordingly," she said.
Ning smiled as he saw her realize the answer without having to spell it all out.
"Ok, next question. I have this pill recipe, but I don't have this one plant. It's very rare to find this plant out in the wild, and the only time it is found, it's impossible to buy it since it's so expensive," Reya said.
"Can you help me come up with an alternative, and thus a modified recipe too?" she asked.
"Oh, that's… asking for a lot," Ning said. "But let me try anyway."
He took the recipe and looked at the ingredient. "Eroded Roots of the Sniveling Weed… that's one rare ingredient for sure. Eroded… let's see… an ingredient with the same level of yin and wood energy should be… the Bark of the Nightwind Tree."
"Yes, you should be able to swap it with the bark. Use about half as much bark as you would the roots and you can easily make the pill. The only other change you will need is to put the next ingredient at half the interval as the one said in the recipe, and it should work perfectly," Ning said.
"The bark, huh… it certainly is much easier to find," Reya said as she got more thoughtful.
"Okay, another question…"
Reya kept on asking one question after another, and Ning answered all of them without a single hint of frustration in his eyes.
Surprisingly, all of her questions were quite advanced. If he had to put a grade on them, he would've guessed that they were around Grade 6's worth of questions.
He wasn't really sure about that however since he himself didn't know much about the grades and only based it off of that he knew something a grade 9 alchemist didn't.
Ning's class was supposed to run only for 3 hours, after which, he would be done for the day, and his class would be taken by another teacher that had his schedule for the day.
So, one the class ended, he had to say goodbye to Reya.
"Come again if you have any more questions. Also, bring your friends too if you can. I can help them understand a bit more too," Ning said.
"O-Okay. Thank you, Teacher Ning," Reya said and left.
With nothing else to do, Ning went to the staff room to spend his time. He socialized with other teachers to pass the time there.
"Did you get any students, Teacher Ning?" A teacher asked.
"Oh, Teacher Boel, haha you're here," Ning said to the old man.
"Oh, what about me?" he asked.
"I had a student come into my class because her friends lied to her and said that my class was yours," Ning said.
"Ah, was it Reya?" Boel asked.
"Oh, you know her?" Ning asked. Surprisingly, Teacher Boel remembered the name of a student when they would blend in with all the hundreds, if not thousands of students he saw everyday.
"Yes, of course. She is one of the best and brightest student we have in the Alchemy wing. Her knowledge and passion regarding Alchemy is not one to scoff at," Boel said.
"Unfortunately, such cannot be said for her social skills. She can't choose who her friends are and who her enemies are. Just because some of the other students act nice to her, she thinks they are her friends when all they want to do is see her fail."
Boel sighed.
"Oh, so the girls send her to me was not a prank, but deliberate choice to make her fail, huh?" Ning asked.
"Must be. Well, I hope you helped her at least. I don't want to see such a good child fail," Boel said.
"Haha, don't worry Teacher Boel. She was my only student for the day, so I spent all my 3 hours answering all of her questions," Ning said.
"Ah, that makes me feel much better. Now that I think about it, I think I will send her to you for a few days so that you can teach her freely. This will help her stay away from the other's influence," Boel said.
"That sounds like a good idea," Ning said with a smile.
"Anyway, I need to go down to the city to do some work in the guild. See you later Teacher Ning," Boel said and left.
Ning didn't have anything he wanted to do or could do, so he spent the rest of the time inside the staff room, reading through the various books trying to see if there is anything that could help him learn some more.
Unfortunately, he knew it all.. So, he walked back to underground to his room to cultivate and wait for another day.
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Ning set his class schedule and went back to the class the next day to wait for new students to come. However, that day went on without any students.
Ning just shook his head and spent the next 3 hours cultivating. Once the time was over, he went back to the staff room to pass some time.
"Oh hey teacher Ning," Ryuger came up to Ning and sat next to him. "How are your classes going on?" he asked.
"I had no students today, so that's about as good as my classes are going," Ning said. "What about you?"
"Hah, mine's not better either. Barely got a student today, but he too asked to leave after an hour. That little sh*t, I will get him someday," Ryuger said making Ning chortle.
"I guess it all depends on the lecture in 3 days then," Ning said. Ryuger nodded his head when he heard that.
Another day passed, and Ning was back in his class, waiting. Fortunately, there wasn't nobody in his class today.
"Good Morning, Teacher Ning," Reya's voice sounded from the doorway.
"Oh, good morning Reya. You chose to come here today?" Ning asked.
"Ah, yes. Teacher Boel told me to come here and learn. I tried to call my friends too, but they didn't want to come at all," Reya said.
"That's okay. Come on in, we can learn now," Ning said.
That entire day, he taught Reya about the concept behind forming pills. Up until now, she had been making pills while following the recipe, but Ning decided to remedy that so that she could see on her own and improve the pills.
Reya left once the classes ended.
For the next 2 days as well, Reya came to Ning's classes to learn and was improving very quickly thanks to him teaching her with only her improvement in mind.
"Oh yeah, don't bother coming here tomorrow. I have a lecture and won't be here," Ning told her.
"You have a lecture, Teacher? Hmm… is this your first lecture?" Reya asked.
"Yes," Ning answered.
"Oh, good luck then. Choose an easy but interesting topic, or the students won't come to your lecture," Reya said.
"Interesting topic? What would you consider as interesting?" he asked curiously.
"Umm…" Reya hesitated. "I'm quite interested in almost all aspects of Alchemy, so I might be a bad person to ask that question. You will have to figure it out yourself."
"Just make sure to have it be interesting to the general mass. You need a lure to get the students. Sometimes, it's the teacher's reputation, sometimes it's the topic itself."
"As long as one of them is interesting enough to get the student's interest, you will have a successful lecture," Reya said.
"Oh, thank you for that knowledge. I shall choose a very interesting topic indeed," Ning said.
Reya left and Ning went back to the staff room to look for ideas.
He searched through the many books in the hope of getting a hint at what his lecture should be about. 'Urgh, I don't really like this. Can't I just teach something simple?' he wondered.
He opened a book and saw a recipe in that book. It was a simple recipe for a pill that even a beginner could make using some everyday ingredients.
Ning quickly closed that book and moved on to another one. He looked through the content of that book as well and came across another pill.
"That's…" he curiously checked that book, especially a part of the recipe.
"Hey, Teacher Ning," somebody called him from the side.
"Ah, Senior Jezeere, how was your class today?" Ning asked.
"Same old. Too many students to teach properly you know," Jezeere said. "How was yours?"
"Uh, I still just have one student. It looks like students don't really care about teachers with no reputation," Ning said.
"Yeah, the students are stubborn like that," Jezeere said with a sigh. "However, your lecture should be coming up soon, so that should help you a bit," Jezeere said.
"Yes, It's tomorrow, and I'm looking for some topic ideas right now," Ning said.
"Oh, yes. Those are important," Jezeere said. "Have you thought of anything?"
"Actually, I have," Ning said as he flipped through the book he was reading just now and pointed at something.
"You're going to lecture about that? Is there even enough material to fill the 3-hour gap?" Jezeere asked.
"I… think so. There definitely is enough content, I just need to know if it's interesting," Ning said.
"Alright, assume I'm a student and give me the lecture on it," Jezeere said.
"Um… sure," Ning said and started explaining what he knew about the topic. At first, Jezeere had a simple smile while he listened to it. However, it soon turned into confusion as time went along, followed by dread and terror.
Ning didn't realize what was happening as he focused all of his attention on remembering the topic from his mind.
Ning stopped cultivating and left the room. He walked out of the underground space and walked into the staff room before getting into the queue to write his information about the schedule.
"Oh, Teacher Ning. You excited for the lecture today?" someone came and stood behind Ning. Ning turned around to see who it was.
"Ah, Teacher Bagoo. Of course, I am excited. You must be excited as well," Ning said with a smile.
"Haha, of course, I'm excited. My topic today is quite interesting as well. I think I will get a lot of students," Bagoo said.
"Oh, good luck. Teacher Bagoo. I hope my topic does well as well," Ning said and walked up to the now-empty board.
He quickly checked his schedule first. Thankfully, it wasn't during the daytime for now. 'I guess new teachers are given the perfect time to teach,' he thought.
He quickly filled in the information for his schedule and turned to the Teacher Bagoo to say his goodbyes.
After he left, Bagoo was left there looking at the board. When his eyes fell on Ning's topic, it was only met with a face of confusion and an audible exclamation.
"Huh?"
BANG BANG
"Wake up, Idiot!!"
Someone started banging on Nilo's room.
"Stop! Stop! I'm already awake," Nilo shouted from inside with obvious annoyance. Nilo was a young man with a handsome face, but messy hair that brought down his attractiveness a bit.
He got out of the bed and stretched. He then went to wash his face before looking at the robes in his storage.
"Hmm… red or black?" he wondered for a few seconds. He thought about what he needed to do today and picked red. He quickly changed his clothes and walked out.
Outside the door were 2 other young men waiting for him.
"What the F*ck? Why are you wearing red? I thought we were going to go tame some beasts today," one of the young men said.
"Yeah, Nilo. You went to the Alchemy wing yesterday too," the other man said.
"I'm sorry guys, I didn't get an answer yesterday, so today I'm going to try once again," Nilo said.
"You serious? Damn. Okay, I can't stop you now I guess," the man said. " Alright, let's go or we will be late."
The group of 3 walked out of the massive student's house and climbed up the stairs to the top of the mountain.
The students lived on the west side of the mountain, opposite the city. This was a special place the academy owned and built houses here for its students.
After reaching the top of the stairs, the other 2 black-robed students went to the Beast Mastery wing, while Nilo walked towards the Alchemy wing.
'What's on the schedule today?' he wondered and checked it on the massive board in the hallway.
'Oh, the old geezer is teaching? Should I go to him?' he wondered. 'Nah, his class has way too many students to learn anything I want to learn.'
'What about Tyra? Is that woman teaching anything?… doesn't seem so.'
'Oh yeah, who's on lecture today,' Nilo thought and looked through.
'Boring, boring, oh a new name… but still boring, boring, bor— huh?' Nilo walked forward to see the schedule closely.
"WHAT?!" he shouted out loud.
"I know right?" someone else beside him said.
"That's so stupid that I want to go check it out."
"Me too."
"Haha, let us all go there."
People started walking towards the lecture hall, leaving behind Nilo and a few others. Nilo just looked at the lecture topic and was still very surprised and confused by it. So much so that, he couldn't help but question out loud.
"Who in their right mind teaches Alchemy students about Cabbages?"
Ning looked at his lecture hall that could easily fit around 25,000 students quickly start to fill up. It was unlikely that he would get 25 thousand students, but he would be happy with just 5000 of them.
He had a wide smile on his face as he looked at the students come in and give him a weird look. He was secretly patting himself on the back for coming up with such a stupid, yet brilliant idea.
He watched as students quickly filled about 1000 seats. He waited, and as hoped, more and more came in. However, after 2500, they started slowing down.
In the end, only 3000 of them were in there. 'Sigh, I guess luring with Cabbage wasn't the best idea. Still, if I can keep these people, I should be able to do quite well in the monthly count. I only really need half of them to join one class and I will be set for the Bronze star badge,' Ning thought.
He waited for a little longer and the time to start the lecture finally arrived.
"Please quiet down," Ning said. The student's chatter came to a grinding halt as the lecture hall had a pin drop silence.
"My name is Ning Ruogong. I'm a new teacher in the Five Professions Academy and this is my first lecture. So, for my first lecture, I decided to go with something that everyone would know about… a cabbage," Ning said.
"How many of you don't know what a cabbage is?" Ning asked, but did not get a single response.
"Exactly. However, how many of your truly, and I mean TRULY know about cabbages?" Ning asked. Once again, the students remained silent. They didn't know what the teacher was talking about at all.
Ning smiled and picked a random student. "You, young man with short hair and gold earrings, What benefits do cabbages have?" Ning asked.
The student stood up, under the prying eyes of his other 3000 fellow students, and started nervously answering.
"Uh… they are nutritional," he said.
"Yes, keep going," Ning encouraged.
"Um…" the guy looked around him and then back towards Ning before saying, "They are…good for keeping your thin. They fill your stomach without making you fat."
"More?" Ning asked.
"Um… I'm an Alchemy student, teacher… I don't know about vegetables," the student said.
Ning shook his head and asked, "Anyone know anything more?"
A few students answered him.
"It helps reduce your fever," A girl said.
"Good! More?" Ning asked.
"Uh…It helps maintain a person's blood pressure," another girl said.
"Yes, keep going," Ning said.
"It helps with digestion?" a young man questioned.
"It does… however, all the answers you guys are giving me are something a chef would tell me, not an Alchemist. Tell me, from an alchemy perspective, what does a cabbage do?" he asked.
The students looked around at themselves wondering what to say. They hadn't even heard of using cabbage in Alchemy before this.
"Um, teacher… is Cabbage even an Alchemy ingredient?" a girl asked.
Ning smiled and said, "Of course it is."
"Did you know that you could submerge a cabbage in a Fire Fox's urine, and then use it to make a pill that cures blindness?"
"Did you know that cabbage is one of the most important ingredients in making a pill that directly removes the kidney stone of a person without hurting them at all?"
"Did you know that using cabbage, you can make a pill that instantly removes any form of insomnia?" Ning asked.
The crowd looked around, dumbfounded.
"Well, you are in a bit of luck then.. In today's lecture, I will tell you about 40 different ways Cabbage can be used to make pills that truly do wonderful things.
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